Review: Everdell

Welcome to my short review for the board game Everdell.

As always, I am a game designer and thus mostly interested in two things.

• What are the positives that might teach me (or other gamers) something?
• What are the negatives to look out for and how would I resolve those?

Additionally, I come from a background of non-gamers or very light gamers. This gives me 10+ years of experience with how those people see and approach games, and where possible hurdles lie. Most of my analysis of board games is about that: “how can we remove any hurdles between players and a new game?”

So let’s see!

What’s the idea?

In Everdell, you are building your own little village in the woods (of max 15 cards).

The game ends after 4 seasons. The bulk of your points will come from the base value of the cards, but many of them have special powers or actions to create extra value. That’s the strength of this game: finding cards that combine and interact in ways that score loads of points!

On your turn, you do one of three things.

• PLACE: Place your worker on an available spot and take the associated action.
• BUY: Buy a card (from your hand or the shared meadow). Pay the ingredients, place it in your city.
• PREPARE: Prepare for the next season. Retract all your workers and get this season’s reward.

That’s it!

At its core, the game is really simple. It does not, however, appear to be. For some reason, it tries its hardest to fool you and appear as a really complex game, which is one of the negatives I’ll talk about below.

Because it is a good game. It’s certainly not a perfect game, but it doesn’t take much work to bring it closer to that goal.

What do I like?

Simple Core

As stated, the core is really simple. How it should be. Each turn is the same, you pick from one of a few options, and this repeats in a cycle until the end of the game. No rounds, no phases, no special mechanisms, no exceptions.

It is truly no exaggeration that my summary above is enough to get started with a game of Everdell. Because the actual complexity and depth comes from the specific cards and worker placement spots.

As always, I recommend teaching this summary and then simply jumping into the game. Once you know what you can do, you can play. Details, strategy, smart moves, it all comes later. (Players might say they “want to know all the rules!” or “explain everything before we start!”, but they really don’t and it’s pretty useless.)

Art & Theme

Additionally, the game is obviously gorgeous. Beautiful art, beautiful components, beautiful design from start to finish.

In general, theme isn’t very important. A small layer of polish, or pretty colors, or flavor text … it really doesn’t matter.

But when it’s executed with such precision and artistry, it does matter. For a few hours, you are in Everdell. Because the board literally has a three-dimensional tree, and the cards all look and feel like a magical forest, and the components aren’t just abstract colored cubes.

When people talk about building something, they don’t say “I’m building this card here”, they say “I’m adding a nice little clock tower to my forest to help my critters!”

It heightens the experience and immersion. In this case, it sometimes helps the gameplay and makes it more intuitive.

Because, as I said, the core of the game is about synergies. Cards that go well together.

For example, some cards show the name of another card at the bottom. If you have already built it in your city, you may play the other card for free. If you can chain a few of these combos together, you can build many powerful buildings for free.

More to the point, these cards are usually thematically linked. The school gives you a teacher for free. The mine gives you a miner mole for free. This makes sense in a way that makes this mechanism easier to understand and reason through.

Balanced on a knife’s edge

I haven’t played it enough to be certain. But what I’ve seen has shown me that the game is very well balanced.

Scores are usually quite close, with a slight edge to more experienced players. Players might seem ahead at certain points, but there are always smart plays to catch up or get a sudden boost.

That’s the idea behind “multiple strategies towards victory”. Somebody who has loads of buildings that generate points … will not have buildings that produce goods. Somebody who builds the first thing they can build will seem ahead in the first two seasons … but probably won’t have the combos needed to grab some special “event” tiles at the end. (These require you have to have a very specific set of cards.)

Every card is good for something. In fact, every card is good for multiple things. You can think ahead, but you can’t be certain.

In my very first game, the scores were 53, 56, and 58. Even though some players seemed waaaay ahead or waaaay behind at different points in the game. Even though some players clearly got lucky and others clearly did not. (Despite completely different strategies and cities, the victory basically depended on ONE event tile that I grabbed just before the next player secretly planned to grab it.)

It all feels very well balanced, no matter the players, no matter the strategy.

What I don’t like

Overwhelming

This game absolutely overwhelms players by the number of worker placement spots, the amount of text on a card, the amount of ways to score. It hides its simple and fun core with layers of components and a huge board.

This is fine … if you call that “the full game”. But for a first game, maybe even the first 2 or 3 games, you really want a simplified version.

I’ve played with a group of very experienced board gamers, and everyone struggled through their first game being overwhelmed at every point. Yes, we enjoy such a challenge and know how to work through it, but less experienced gamers will just give up.

Fortunately, in the case of Everdell, this simplified version isn’t far away. I’m not necessarily suggesting you actually do this, it’s more an analysis and learning moment.

My proposals might seem harsh or “dumbed-down”, but it’s not. They barely make the game less balanced or interesting, while shedding lots of complexity. (Additionally, when playing your first game, you have no clue what you’re doing anyway and balance is of no importance at all.)

Remove the events: yes, I’m a game designer and I see why they exist. But they’re more stuff, and we don’t want more stuff when learning a new game. Leave them out and the game remains mostly the same, but less overwhelming.

Reduce the number of worker placement spots: right now, many of the spots are just a slight variation on another spot. There are a few “clearly the best” spots, and the rest aren’t used or only used with a mumble of “guess I’ll go there then, whatever”.

Think about it. You’re explaining this game to new players and they have more than 20 places they can go, with (at most) 16 possible cards to consider on top!

That’s overwhelming. Being overwhelmed causes people to lock up and give up.

Similarly, stone is so rare in this game that it’s a bit ridiculous. (If you can somehow stock up on stone, you’re much more likely to win.)

What to do?

• Remove some of the “slight-variation spots”. (For example, you have “one berry”, “one berry and a card”, “one resin and a card”, “two resin”)
• Replace it with one spot, which you can always visit, that gives one good of whatever type you want + allows drawing one card.
• (Notice that you keep the higher value spots that people actually, in practice, visit and use.)

Remove the most complicated cards: many cards rely on each other for combos or balance, so certainly don’t just remove anything. But there are some cards with lots of text and a very unique, complicated, rare action. These slow down the game and make it much harder for new gamers, who aren’t in any position to actually use those cards in a smart way.

The general rule is that you remove cards that have so much text that it fills the entire block on the card. (If you remove a card with a combo, which I don’t generally recommend, obviously also remove the dependency.)

This is a classic example of “yes, you have lots of variety and pretty art with your huge deck … but it also means there’s a much larger luck-of-the-draw factor”. Because the deck is so huge, you might wait the whole game for that combo card and never even come close to seeing it. Or that one really good card only appears once and the player before you snatches it away by default, leaving you with literally nothing to do on your turn.

With all this done, you now have a game …

• That can be taught and explained in less than 5 minutes
• Where players have less than 10 possible locations/options/viable choices to consider.
• Which needs less space on the table and looks less overwhelming from the start.
• With only cards that are understood and used pretty immediately.

For me, it’s worth making these changes to make a game approachable the first few times you play it. Others might disagree, or simply not have the group that needs it.

The designers probably didn’t do this because they obviously want players to experience the full game which, arguably, is better than this watered-down variant.

I’m more concerned with getting people over that first hurdle—that crucial, ever-increasing hurdle—to trying and experiencing a new game they don’t understand yet. And this simplification doesn’t change much about the game at all, while it is a major simplification.

Unnecessary complexity

Let’s continue on that idea.

This game has a few of those little “extra rules” or “extra exceptions” which do nothing. They confuse players, they are forgotten, they make the game seem more complicated (again).

Below is a list of “little rules” that can be removed, in my experience.

• The spot that only opens in autumn (where you discard cards to get that number of points) … can just be open all game!
  • Make all spots single-use. Keep the rule that you never return if you go there. Now it’s just a simple, meaningful choice you have all game.
• There are a bunch of rules about “hand limit”. For example, if you must give away two cards, you must give it to somebody who can accept them. If somebody can accept only part, and another can accept the whole thing, you must give it to the one who can accept most. And if nobody can accept those cards, you can’t do the action (in some cases), or the cards are simply removed (in other cases).
  • You guessed it: scrap that!
  • “When giving away cards, give them to the person who can accept the most. If no such person exists, you can’t do the action.”
• Some spots are single-use, while others are infinite use (merely indicated by an open bottom). But spots on cards can only be used by you, unless they also have an “open” sign which means anyone can visit! And even then, some cards show a tiny little bonus that the owner gets if somebody else uses their open worker spot!
  • First of all, add a much more obvious visual distinction between single-use and multi-use spots. (If possible … just draw multiple spots where needed, and make them ALL single-use. It’s simpler.)
  • Secondly, make all spots open to everyone (on your own cards), but the owner always gets a bonus (of, say, 1 victory point). => This is, again, simpler and consistent. It also actually encourages more interaction and strategy.

If you add up all my comments above, you can see why I think this game could be even leaner and simpler. The “supposed” complexity of its outward appearance can be removed, leaving a simple game that looks simple to play. (And doesn’t require shoving together two tables just to fit it on there :p)

In that state, Everdell would be a 10/10 for me.

Tips & Advice

My first advice, obviously, is to simplify the game in the ways I described above if there’s anyone in your group who isn’t an experienced gamer (or familiar with Everdell or similar games).

Leave out modules that I consider “expansions” (such as the events). Reduce the number of worker spots and make them more free. Forget about all the little rules and exceptions. Shed the deck, if you know the game and can meaningfully decide which cards can be left out.

The game should look rich and inviting on setup, but not overwhelming.

Rules explanation should be 1 minute for the core actions (those three options you have all game), and then a few minutes for details, handling questions, perhaps giving some examples.

If your explanation takes longer than 5 minutes, just start playing. (They won’t remember any of it anyway, and you’re probably spending too much time on details.)

That said, Everdell does feel like a nice mix between “approachable/light” and “deep/strategy”. It’s a gateway game … from gateway games to “bigger board games” ;)

If you feel confident you can explain it succinctly and make these adaptations, or that you can lean into the theme and pretty art to distract people, it should fit with most groups. (Though certainly not all, because it does remain a much heavier game than, say, Codenames.)

When it comes to playing, here’s some advice. (I usually refrain from doing this in any detail, because “figuring it out” and “getting better” is the whole fun of playing games!)

This is an engine building game, not a “play the card with the most points in your hand”. As such,

• Focus on a nice mix of green (plant) and blue (scroll) cards. They both give you extra resources/cards/actions.
• At the start, this means you barely have points and are scraping by.
• But when the last two seasons come around, you’ll be swimming in resources and options.
• The most points are scored in the final season, when you have the resources and powers to play a load of really high-scoring cards. (Usually, you’d reserve the purple cards for last.)
• If you haven’t build your engine—if you barely have cards that produce goods—your last season falls flat and you will not win.

The worker placement slots on the board should also give hints about what the designers view as “good strategies”. Many of them … allow you to discard cards. Card management is a big part of the game. If you see no clear use for a card, get rid of it immediately. Discard the mediocre stuff, so you have room to get better stuff. You don’t want to struggle against the hand limit (of 8 cards) throughout the whole game.

In fact, in the games I won, I always ended with my hand and resources almost perfectly exhausted. (Because cards or resources left over score nothing, so hoarding rarely has any use.)

Conclusion

Everdell is a gorgeous game that fills a table with a rich atmosphere, but also with a lot of overwhelming components and little mechanisms.

It is fun. The core is fun, the cards are fun, getting combos or building your engine is fun.

It is challenging. It is challenging in a way that makes you want to try harder and be better, as if the game expects great combos and synergies from you, and you’re a student failing their mentor. Though the first season you ever play will be challenging in a way that leaves you scratching your head and wondering why on earth you picked this game.

It’s a really simple, proven core loop … that unfortunately wraps itself in needless complexity. With some (relatively minor) modifications, you can make the first games much simpler and more approachable.

In that state, it would be an (almost) perfect game.

In that state, I would (tentatively) recommend it to any group as a semi-light game. But don’t expect something that is truly “light” or “quick to play”. Even reading all the cards and understanding what they do already surpasses that bar.

Those are my thoughts and analysis of Everdell (the base game).

Similar well-known games are probably Wingspan (similar complexity, less deep gameplay) or Flamecraft (just as simple, just as needlessly convoluted in its communication of the rules). If you want something lighter, you’re probably looking at engine-building or deck-building games that are just small card games and nothing else.

What about the kids version?

The kids version, “My Lil’ Everdell”, seems a good attempt to streamline the game. It shows you can keep the core of a game without the need for endless little extra rules or mechanics.

For example, the number of resources shrank from 4 to 3, city size shrank to 12. All very simple tweaks that make a game shorter and less overwhelming. (Even the number of actions is reduced: you simply place a worker and buy a card in the same turn. Seasons are kept in lockstep.)

At the same time, people online mostly complain that other things were not cut down in number. For example, there are still 5 type cards and their kids get endlessly confused about which is which. (It’s more a family version than a kids version, as far as I can tell.)

Unfortunately, some of the core is also lost, with much fewer chances for synergies and combos. For example, there’s no “if you have this card, you get that other matching type for free”. This means My Lil’ Everdell is much more a generic dime-a-dozen deck building game.

Explaining and playing a game of that version should be a much easier task with any group, after which everyone is ready to play the bigger game.

Yes, there’s less going on and there’s less depth. It’s also explainable and playable with 1/5th of the time and effort.

Any seasoned gamer is probably bored, but we often forget that 99% of people are not seasoned gamers ready to tackle the next huge box of components and rules.

(And they followed my advice of more clearly differentiating single-use and infinite-use spots! And removing many other tiny exceptions!)

I’ve never played it, however, and thus can’t comment any further.